Stone the Heretics!

Our traditional format is two guests per show, but when we have someone as smart and loquacious as Ben Shapiro, we toss our traditions and do it live. We cover the mid-terms, we look at 2020, take a gander at Trump’s management style and a host of other host takes. Also, another edition of “What Are You Watching?” and Rob Long hosts a contest for new members. Join today!

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I saw the movie Willard in 1971(I was 10 or 11) and based on my movie going experience never went to see the sequel Ben in 1972, in spite of the Michael Jackson promotional song on the popular music airways (Chicago WLS & WCFL) at the time.

Did Mr. Shapiro comment on the choice of song for the podcast closing music?

When you were adding up reliable red and blue states, you forgot to put Texas and Indiana in the red column. There is still an imbalance, but it’s not quite as bad as you said.

It might also be instructive to add up the precincts-there are some really red parts of blue states, and it is those beleaguered citizens who keep me from wanting to dissolve the Union.

It occurred to me that despite all the noise, most of the US is (still) in the center. I don’t think the right would be quite so stirred up, if the left would leave us alone, but of course that is just what the left cannot do.

It may be true that the Republicans don’t have an agenda, but the country class (see Codevilla) does. We want: 1. Rule of law, including borders 2. Liberty 3. Smaller, much less intrusive government that does what government is supposed to do-defend the country, keep order, and punish lawbreakers.

And the problem with “criticizing Trump” is that often it doesn’t take the form of “That’s not a great tax reform bill,” it’s more like another round of “Trump is loathsome.” (Looking at YOU, @jonahgoldberg !) Which makes it easy for the other side to argue that therefore Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are “loathsome” Supreme Court nominees, etc.

Rob said: “In a free market system this shouldn’t work” , where he’s basically saying that the electorate wants free stuff and entitlements preserved regardless of how likely they are to collapse or steal from younger generations.

I post that article over and over and not one person has tried to argue with me about it. I am very lucky that I got to hear Rep. Jason Lewis explain the stuff over and over to the people of Minneapolis on the radio. He just lost his House seat to a free stuff Democrat (Also she fell into a bunch of stock options in the healthcare business. She’s a human resources executive.) that basically won by playing rope-a-dope.

All the Democrat party has to do is give away as much stuff as possible and play identity politics and critical theory with impunity and they will take over everything until the bond market collapses. Trump is just a speed bump.

The GOP needs a grand overarching strategy to deal with this or The Republic is toast.

Mia Love either called Trump a racist, or got tricked into calling Trump a racist on Jake Tapper’s show. It is what it is. She had to be the only Republican that did that. If someone wants to offer more granular analysis, be my guest.

Ben cited the statistic that George Bush had to pick up 11 million voters between 2000 and 2004. I had never heard that before, and it seems like a huge number. ( Let me be clear, I’m not an expert on what I’m about to say.) There are a lot of hedge fund guys, and really smart observers of our financial system that say Medicare part D was a really big deal. Karl Rove dreamed it up so those guys would be assured to finish off Iraq with the surge. It was an instant $9 trillion unfunded liability.

You are just dumb to not vote for stealing as much as possible from your fellow citizen via government. That is our system. That is also what the direct election of senators has caused. The Founders would be horrified, of course. This is a very interesting dynamic generally, and for the next election cycle. Look at the ACA. It’s nothing but a Cloward and Piven strategy to force single payer.

Kyle Bass directly confronted Karl Rove about Medicare Part D in a panel discussion and I guess he just about melted down.

The GOP has got to get strategic about this, or everything is going to go one way until we run out of money.